 Hello and good evening. Welcome to all of you who are watching this webinar on a rainy Thursday afternoon in Mumbai. I am a fellow panelist based out of various parts of the country. As you know, this evening's webinar curated with the Danik Bhaskar group is about how non-metro markets in India are driving economic revival post-COVID. It's been a very interesting day of news developments. We all know what's been happening outside, but we will not discuss that today. We are here to discuss what's happening with our economy and how these markets are very important to economic revival. I have a very interesting set of panelists with me. Let me start by introducing them to you. Satyajit Sen Gupta, CCSMO Sales and Marketing Danik Bhaskar Group, Vikram Sapuja Group, CEO Medicine Media and Medicine Outdoor, Shashi Sinha, CEO of India IPG Media Brands, Dheerish Agrawal, Promoter Director, Danik Bhaskar Group, Meenu Paake, Senior General Manager, Marketing Dabbar, last but not least, Vivek Srivatsa, Hello Marketing Passengers for Tata Motors. Thank you Meenu and gentlemen for joining us. Let me start by laying a bit of background and some groundwork for what we are discussing. As we all know, India has been through a very strict lockdown. The April-May-June quarter, the country was literally under a curfew. Markets have started opening up post that. A lot of interesting trend trends have come forward. We've been reading a lot. We have ourselves been publishing a lot. One of the things that has come up to the fore is that given how strict lockdowns in cities were, as well as how severe the spread of the disease in cities were, economic revival in the large metros has been pretty slow. If you look at the large categories that drive India's consumption story, India's growth story, whether it is FMCG, auto, e-commerce, and other multiple services and manufacturing industries, trends say that the non-metro markets have driven growth better as far as driving demand, driving consumption is concerned. There are multiple reasons for that. We all know reverse migration happened during lockdown. A lot of the blue-collar and white-collar workers who went back to their hometowns continue to stay there because metros are not fully open. Metros were worse hit. When it comes to media consumption, we all know newspaper circulation. We all are based in large metro cities. We all know newspaper consumption was badly hit in these cities, whereas non-metros were not as badly hit. So that's another issue we will cover. There are some other interesting trends. I was reading a report on GST collection growth in India. As opposed to a 4% growth nationally, GST collection growth was a 10% showing better revival and rebound in these markets. Agriculture, which is such an important part of the economy and most of the agriculture naturally is based in rural and smaller areas, has been driving growth in the last two years, thanks to a bountiful monsoon. So these are very important trends that have taken shape in the last three or months and we thought it would be apt to discuss how these markets are very important to India's revival and how they are going. So let me start this conversation by asking Meenu. Meenu, from what I understand, Dabur has almost a 70% of its top line coming from markets that are beyond the top metros. How do you see growth coming back in these sectors in the immediate term, say this quarter and next quarter, and what would be the impact of this over the longer run? Because what we have understood also is that a lot of companies are now using this opportunity to penetrate deeper into the non-metro markets. And I'll come to that subsequently when we talk to Vivek. But what's been Dabur's experience in the last three months and how you're looking at the next 12 months as far as these non-metro markets are concerned? So good afternoon everyone and thanks for inviting me Grishche. Thanks so much. Okay, so let me just give you some of the key trends that are relevant to FMCG and to Dabur specifically. So what has really happened, certainly rural has grown much faster than urban. In fact, the growth rate is almost twice that of urban. Now within urban, it's really metros which have grown the slowest. So for Dabur categories, within categories, healthcare has grown very, you know, the fastest pretty much because the tailwind was so strong towards healthcare. Healthcare has pretty much grown across pop strata. Personal care, if you were to slice it, then certainly the growths are faster in rural and the smaller town classes. Urban has actually declined for the personal care categories, right? So what you're saying is absolutely right. Rural growths are much faster. Within urban, it is really the tier two, tier three town classes that have grown. Now what has happened really is that I think one of the big things that has happened is that modern trade, right? And if I were to do a channel mix, you know, study, then modern trade, which is pretty much urban dependent and also metro dependent has come to some sort of a, you know, pause, right? Because of the stores closing down, right? And modern trade is predominantly in 5 lakh plus 10 lakh to 25 lakh, 25 lakh plus towns, metros, where modern trade is predominant. And modern trade is one of the channels which has seen a decline at least in within our business. And that's largely because the stores and the shops were closed, right? That's number one. Number two, e-commerce, right, which has really grown at a very fast rate. And what has really happened interestingly is that e-commerce, which was very dependent again on the larger town classes, has made inroads into the smaller towns. So a large part of our salience of e-commerce, for example, used to come from, you know, 10 lakh plus, that salience has gone down and the salience of tier one, tier two, tier three towns has gone up significantly, right? So that's a very interesting one. So e-commerce making inroads and e-commerce of course has grown five times for us and e-commerce has become a significant part of our business, right? So that's number two. Number three, I think the digital consumption, right? So a lot of media is being consumed now across town classes. And we have about 500 million smartphone users as we speak. Our spends on digital have gone up tremendously. There's a growth of again, 3x, 4x on digital spends. And because we are able to communicate with the rural consumer, with the small-town consumer, I think some of the double products at least have got huge amount of salience, you know, because of these mediums, right? And therefore the awareness levels and the traction towards healthcare, the traction towards some of the new products that we have launched, we have seen that traction coming from the smaller town classes, right? So we've got main menu over say once this pandemic is completely over and say over the next 24, 36 months, we'll see more indexing of SMCG companies on these non-metro markets. Of course, there is no case to move away from the metro markets. They will still drive growth once, you know, things open up completely and things are back to normal. But would you see a long-term trend shaping in where there'll be little more slightly index correction if I would call that towards these non-metro markets? Yeah, I think, you know, a large part of let's say the growth potential, so to say, is likely to come from the smaller non-metro tier 2, tier 3 towns. E-commerce, where will it get its future growths? I think the future growths for e-commerce as a channel will come from these smaller towns, right? The penetration into larger towns, Amazon, Cloudtail, Flipkart, et cetera, Walmart would now, you know, extend into these smaller towns and they will get their growth from these smaller tier 2, tier 3 towns. And our growth on e-commerce is dependent on how they expand, right? So if they make inroads into smaller town classes, we'll pretty much write on that trend, right? Yeah, I think e-commerce has played a very big part in category penetration. Let me hop onto Satsi Sinha, CEO of IPG Media Brands. Mr. Sinha, you handle your company handles a very vast portfolio of brands across multiple categories. Naturally, the story for each category, each brand is not the same. What are the trends you've seen? And if I were to ask you beyond FMCG, which are the other categories where you've seen a lot of growth being driven by brands that are penetrating in the non-metro markets or penetrating deeper. And also, how does that impact the media usage of these brands looking into 2021 and beyond? So, thank you very much, Naval. And hello everyone. So I think there's a lot of story which is emanating from outside metros and we at, like you said, beyond FMCG is, but it is, you know, auto and we will tell you stories so let me not preempt that. But I think, I want to make a point slightly different from what you asked. So the point I want to make that this is not something contemporary. This is not something because, as you said, the metros are, you know, just now, fuzzy lack of movement and while the small towns are there. I see there is not only, you know, there's a propensity for brands, what this pandemic has done and all the awareness around it. And it's not only healthcare. It's not only about, as we mentioned, tailwinds on healthcare, but a lot of other categories which are, you know, this whole focus on trust around brands. And I talked about it earlier that, you know, there is brands built a certain internet of trustworthiness. And I think people will move towards this. There's a price to be paid for getting into brands, sort of modality categories where the brands are not penetrated. You see, suddenly, I mean, I spoke about it, you've seen it happening. You've seen the first categories of milk is not happening. There's a huge jump up which is happening there. That's one. Secondly, you know, people were pushing decisions. So, let the way speak about four-wheelers, but two-wheelers, people were saying this and should we take it before the decision to do the financial reasons. And, you know, actually the reverse which is happening, people are sitting around here listening, personal mobility has to be taken care of. So, you are seeing a lot of traction. And I think the larger point is that a stage will come, you know, historically we used to believe that a metro consumer behaves one way. Yes. The non-metro consumer behaves another way. I think a stage will come in their way of looking at brands and their way of buying cycles will be similar. First, I tell you, it may be different, but the fact finally on media has played a role, which is your second question which you asked. You know, I think media plays a large role because finally media is a critic. You know, the mobilization of choices happens because of media and, you know, while we know referred to digital and digital options are known. But I believe, I'm not saying it because British Bay is here on Earth. Yeah, generally we believe on YouTube only I speak about it. It is a critical role because there's a huge amount of credibility around it. There is, you know, today there's so much of nonsense happening people don't know what to believe or not to believe. So, I think language print particularly because there's empathy with languages helps in that sense. So, if you see both these colluding under the intersection point. So, one is the propensity to consume more brands and the other side, media consumption going up as it has gone up in the pandemic. The intersection will be that this is going to be a long-term phenomenon, not going to be a short-term thing. So, if I was a brand which is focusing and concentrating on towns, outside metros and say, as Vinu said, we know the Pindak plus pop shutter. So, it's a good story. So, while we will go through challenges of distribution, getting back together, it's more expensive to serve those markets. But to answer your question two years from hence, it is a tailwind which I would see across categories. Let me ask you something which bothers a lot of publishers. You know, when we sit in conferences and panels, we always talk about how, you know, print has been under indexed in some markets, especially vernacular markets, language markets. So, having said that Hindi still has the largest share of volume. You know, I was reading the last page medicine report we did and Hindi got 35% of the share. But I think vernacular language papers still have this sense of being under indexed when it comes to large advertisers. Do you see, first, do you think that's true? And two, do you see that correcting over time partly because of this pandemic? So, I don't know, pandemic, let me answer the first question first. So, I think it's under index, if at all, it's got nothing to do with, you know, it's the CPT. You know, consumption was in momentary and the metros. So, English was therefore had a higher cost per thousand, you know, the efficiency now. There will be some equalization. So, something will give, something will gain. The chances are English and no offense meant to any of our friends. But English will give because finally, it's a matter of supply and demand and there has to be something to give. Not only because consumption is subdued, but also because this will probably bring a stronger role in the metros, you know. So, English will probably give. And I think there's a lot of juice left in vernacular. Hindi, of course, as you say, is the mainstay. And not only because for any of the reasons, you see, I said this earlier to you and I'm saying it repeating. Sorry for the pretty much important point that everyone says India is a young country. Actually, the demographic dividend is in the Hindi speaking markets, you know. So, if you think about Maharashtra where we are sitting or Gujarat or South is no longer young. The youth is the Indo-Gangetic plane, you know, all the way from MP and UP and we are all the way to Bengal. And that's both of what's going to happen if the consumption story is there. So, in a manner of speaking, all medium consumption and print for the reason which I mentioned credibility, there is a huge headroom there. I genuinely believe there is a headroom which will get balanced out of what's happening in other markets. Fair enough. Let me hop across to Girish Agrawal, Promoter-Director, Danik Hastur group. You have a very good ringside view of what's happened through the pandemic, Girish Agrawal. And now that things are unlocking print, unfortunately, was a very hard hit media. It's taking time also to recover, but the story is mixed there, right? There is English language print and there is vernacular print, which also includes Hindi. What are the trends you've seen? One, that's one question for you. And the other is, like Shashi was talking about, you know, under-indexing and how that is likely to get corrected. How do you think, what does the role publishers can play in kind of educating the advertising fraternity on kind of, you know, correctly indexing vernacular print if I can use that term? Sure. So, see what has happened because of this pandemic, there was suddenly a hit in the circulation of newspapers. But it was seen more in the metros than these smaller cities. What a simple, basic logical fact that all the metros are vertical cities. You know, you have your building complexes, which are 500,000 flats in one building. So once society decided that, okay, nobody will be allowed to come in or go out, 1,000 copies of circulation of newspapers stopped. You know, while in the tier two, three, four cities, you know, these are the flats of two story, three story, four story, five story kind of thing. And I'm not told 85, 90% of the circulation is back. So the circulation came back much faster and in the non-meters. Coming to your point of indexing and all that. So first of all, I want to make a small request to you and to all of the families that when we say non-meters tier two, three, four, you know, you make us feel like a second-class citizen. So my request would be that let's call it Bharat. So there is metro and that's Bharat. Because Bharat is actually the entire country. So barring out these six, seven, eight metros, which represent around, you know, 10, 11 crore populations, 90% of India's population live in Bharat. By the way, just to add to your point, there have been two, three big channel launches by their name in the last three years and a very big budget movie also. So what you're saying is bang on. I've had a rough week, please don't remind me. Bharat is all about growth. In fact, we talk to our teams and we use the word called LTG. It means let's talk growth. Because in Bharat, we are not talking about how much you are left behind, how are you going to recover. We are talking about growth and there are brands like Dabbar or Tata Motors or higher appliances. You talk to all of them. They all are talking about growth. You know, so what is happening when you sit in a Delhi and Bombay, you have a problem because the situation is very different. You know, it's gloomy and hence you're talking about survival. You're talking about will you come up to the same number of last year or not. While rest of Bharat, the whole India, which is Bharat, is talking about growth. And also fundamentally, please understand in the initial months, we all were very, very pessimistic about revival. You know, but I think in the last two, three months time, what we have seen India has really come back really a long way. You know, in terms of growing ahead. So if you look at the first parameters, banks, you know, if you talk to any bank, no bank is saying that they have any client who has gone barely up. That's very important. So you don't have any client who's making any default. You don't have people, those who are not paying their EMI's or their installment going forward after the moratorium has been over and all that. So that clearly indicates that Bharat is back on his feet and is now trying to grow and go further. Fantastic. And just to add to your point, it's no wonder that you did a 80 page edition in Ahmedabad on 21st of September. So that tells you how Bharat is driving growth. The other quick point I want to touch upon before I move across Mr. Raghurwal is that, you know, now that circulation is back. I think one of the things that I picked up from a few advertisers is this, you know, naturally, various publishers have gone to various advertisers that are gaining various kinds of figures. Do you think INS or some industry body from the print side should play a deeper role in this in terms of clearing advertising of confusion? See, one good thing is about the newspaper business. We are 100% response driven business. No client, Mr. Sinha and Mr. Vikram will confirm that that when you release a print ad, we go on to the Sita Pariksha on a daily basis where you release an ad in the morning and you want a response by evening itself. You don't do a brand building advertising in print. So when you release a half page ad, you call up all your dealers and inform them like Tata Motors will say that and how much you sold by evening. If you were given some 10,000 vehicles and they are not sold by evening, then the next day ad is cancelled by Tata Motors as simple as that. So print anyway, go through that Pariksha. So very clearly the response is happening. However, there are publications like us where we have offered that you can hire any of the big four auditor in the country and we will support them to give you the current data of the circulation what we all have. Fantastic. Let me hop across to Vivek on that point and pick him up. Vivek, is that true? Yeah, the Sita Pariksha part of it is definitely true because as marketers, we are very accountable for ROI and we have daily trackers and elaborate data to know exactly which publication works and which region. We have in fact broken it down into day wise also, which publication works, which region, which day also. Fantastic. He is absolutely right, Guruji. So let me add on to that and auto industry is the bellwether for this country. Auto revival really drives economic growth, economic consumption and the fortunes of even the stock market. And there have been a lot of good stories coming out and some mixed two. I was reading a report done by a rating agency called India RA which said demand rebound visible very strongly in rural, semi-urban, non-urban areas and like how Mr. Agarwal called it the Bharat area, so to say. Right? One, has that been also the experience for Tata Motors? Two, how do you see that last thing over the next? You know, one part of the story is short-term, which is that because the impact of COVID on these non-metro market was lesser, naturally those markets are more open for business, metros are still under, you know, partial lockdown and are likely to remain so for one or two more quarters. Beyond complete unlock and complete recovery, what happens to these markets when as for an auto industry is concerned? Because I understand that there are some auto players who are going to announce that they're going to use this opportunity to significantly expand their dealer network in these non-metro areas. What is Tata Motors planning to do? So first thing is that rural has been driving growth for auto industry for the last three years. It's not anything to do with COVID, in fact. Rural has been growing much faster and metros to a large extent actually had flat growth. If anything, COVID will accelerate that. The other aspect we also see is that you spoke about the reverse migration that and combined with an overall difference in mindset of customers if anything is going to accelerate the growth further. For Tata Motors in specific, we've had an equal increase both in metros and non-metros. I think it is more specific to Tata Motors because we had a little bit of a small base last year and as we were speaking earlier that we've had a rebound a little bit more accelerated than the overall industry but if I have to talk specifically about Tata Motors the growth seems to be higher in the larger towns not from a demand perspective but more about our own supply situation where we are having to prioritize the larger dealers in the metros but over a larger period of time there's no doubt that the Bharat of the world I'll correct myself, I won't say the smaller towns are rural Bharat is what is going to drive growth accelerated because of COVID accelerated because of the change in mindset driven by the reverse urbanization and for me the faster infrastructure catches up when I say infrastructure here I mean automotive retail infrastructure in terms of showrooms, in terms of manpower availability in terms of how banks are able to disperse loans faster in the Bharat areas we see banks are really accelerating on EKIC options for loans so these are the areas which are really holding back and I think in the next six months to one year we'll see an explosion in terms of the retail infrastructure in the Bharat towns and that itself will promote a lot of growth I would like to add that the appetite for risk of the financial agencies, banks or NBFCs will gradually expand in the smaller towns and that will be a little bit also influenced by the improved economy in the smaller towns there will be a lot more confidence in the so-called unorganized economy and that will come forward so I think clearly the higher growth which is driven by the Bharat towns will even be accelerated further going forward I think fair point, let me just touch upon now your media consumption and COVID has really changed the way marketers, brands are looking at media investments they are planning tools and how they are approaching the entire piece one story is obviously digital the other part as we are discussing today is how consumption growth is being driven by markets outside the metro what impact do you see that having on your media expense you are a large advertiser in say the immediate term say this and the next quarter and what is the lasting impact it will have on your overall outlook on media spends going into the next 2-3 years are there any significant changes or trends that you see coming out of this yeah so in fact in auto industry we are in a, I won't call it a vicious circle but we are in a kind of a whirlpool, positive whirlpool the industry is driven by visibility on media and to some extent on new products that we launch and when you have new products you have to be visible and with the market growing the way it is growing media if anything has to be further accelerated in terms of media presence in terms of also the frequency with which we are going to be visible across media data motors specifically and I'd like to say this to the panelists and everybody listening we were the first to go on media post the pandemic in fact we were on newspapers from June onwards and that has really helped us have a much stronger steam behind our recovery and to some extent we took a little bit of a gamble at that point of time and obviously well supported by the recommendation by our own media agency that now is the time to really go and be visible when nobody else is and we've always been a little optimistic in terms of presence across media and including you know the much questioned or much maligned you know newspapers I would say so newspaper really as Mr. Giridjee said there is a Seetha Pareksha but it's still the go-to in terms of you know if I want to buy something today let me look at what is there in the newspapers today you know so that immediacy of a newspaper is really very attractive. Fantastic. Let me come to Vikram Sakuja now. Vikram there's lots that's happened two parts to the lockdown first quarter almost to wash out second quarter lot of activity happened we are in Q3 of this financial year there are two parts again to this conversation one what is happening in the non-metro pockets and how do you see things shaping up from here and are media spends going to recover fast enough to the satisfaction of publishers? Okay on the first question I think this entire thing about will the recovery happen more from Bharat I think we should ask ourselves a question why are we even having this discussion because somewhere along the line the only reason I think we're having this discussion is because there obviously must be some marketers who are sitting in their Gurgaon, Bangalore or Bombay high-rise and looking at world and seeing that's reality and their view of rural must be Bho Bhiga's Amin or Mother India now that is obviously nothing could be further from the truth. Now one of the stories I think right now which really also needs to go out is just a very basic reminder to people that two thirds of India's population lives in rural and if you have to look at non metros more Bharat will be more 53% of household consumption expenditure comes from there 66-53 if you have to look at the rural contribution it's anything from 50 to 67% of FMCG category is about 60% of fans about 50-51% of two wheelers 33% of white goods and maybe smart phones also and only about 15-20% for cars but that's also growing I've done a lot of homework for you here on this particular one we see that the rural literacy has increased from 65-74% female literacy has increased from 54-65% you'll be surprised to know that rural India has got 35% double income family versus 26% in urban India there are 41% dinks double income no kids versus in rural versus 22% in urban there are about 35% of all rural women working versus 21% in urban now digital penetration in terms of pure numbers well in terms of penetration it's about 34% in rural and what 53% in sorry 34% in rural and 53% in urban but in absolute numbers it looks like rural is going to overtake urban at this point in time if you have to look at video consumption two-thirds of the video consumption is coming from rural if you have to look at searchers two-thirds of Google searchers is coming from rural from an online shopper kind of standpoint yes at this point in time urban is more than rural but it's quite likely that that might even get overtaken in terms of full GMVs if you have to look at some of the reports that are coming out by the end of this year so question to my mind is it's a no-brainer at this point in time that the potential is there the growth is there so then why is it that we're asking the question the only reason I think we're asking this question is because some people have caught in a time warp and I think that those blinkers need to be taken away from in front of their eyes the other part I think which is this has already been happening I think post this COVID the reason it's going to become a catalyst is while there have been a lot of people who have said a lot of things about the government stimulus fact remains that there is about two lakh crores which has gone in it's either through the Pradhan Mantri that Kisan some that this is something called Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana there's that entire Mandrega thing all of these finally find their way the entire rural bills the farmer bills that have come in should actually open up a whole lot of other kind of distribution mechanisms in the rural areas which can actually even provide more employment and of course higher price if you have to look at the entire gold right now if you have there's about two thirds of 65% of the entire gold which is stored in the homes is in rural India as gold prices have shot up as they have in the recent six months the kind of sentiment in rural is huge because they're holding onto some fantastic bullion so at this point in time and of course on top of that also seen lesser incidences of covid so everything is telling us right now that even and of course the monsoon although rural sorry the variant part as contribution to rural economy has come down a bit but it's still a significant part of the sentiment that is great because you had a great monsoon and not the least I think if you look at the golden quadrilateral and if you see especially within five kilometers of the main highways those rural villages are just taken off I mean I just two weeks back had gone to Masuri on a drive and the roads were absolutely brilliant so you just go little bit off also and the rural villages are actually doing pretty well so the point actually remains that it's actually a very very vibrant sort of economy the challenge really is firstly people may not be aware of it and they need to be hit on the head to say that yes it is there the second part is that when they make a plan they make a mass India plan because you can't ignore the metros and when you make a mass India plan with TV you pretty much do urban bus rural planning but if you break up that plan you'll find that typically to deliver in the metros you're under delivering in the rural if you just take discrete things but if you go only three to a channels and go to rural you'll under deliver in the metros so then they get caught in a Dharam Shankar so they say let's go into the metros I believe there is a way out where you have to go in a much more micro manner and if you can do local marketing you can actually reach the rural while still addressing the metros we've done a lot of work on that in these last two three months and I think we have a solution here where we can actually do with local area planning we can actually give you not only the same beach in metros but also more each in rural and we can do it at a lower cost so I think it just requires first principle thinking and you've got a solution Fantastic, I think Vikram that answers one of the questions I want to go I asked Shashi also which is about how to make sure that the indexing is correct because as you said while trying to juggle two, three balls together one of them kind of gets under indexed let me go to Satyajit Sen Gupta Satyajit you heard what Vikram said you heard the other panelists you also have had now experience of selling in COVID times going to marketers and brands one part again remains about how the non-metro story is very strong and intact what are the ways of making sure that marketers are able to see the situation from the same lens because it is clear that a lot of brands marketers are still not reading from the same book they are still over indexing on metros they are still very dependent upon metros driving growth and non-metro markets a lot of rural tier one, tier two markets I was reading some looking at some other pointers one of the things which is very important for non-metro markets is self-employment is very high though unlike metro markets where white collar job losses have been significant job losses perhaps have been much, much lesser if any lot of the population is dependent upon rural population dependent upon agrarian economy which is done well infrastructure development the government's focus has been on these markets so they have done spending their government schemes that vikram spoke about manrega and the MSME loan scheme so all of that paints a picture that this market as giri shakarwal mentioned this is the real Bharat which is driving India's growth and truth be told that's been the case pre-COVID also so where do you think is the gap between publishers like you going to agencies and brands and presenting that and brand biting it so very clearly what we've been discussing and it's very apparent that regional newspapers got back the circulation pretty fast and we are already on 85-90% of circulation this is a fact which has helped this entire COVID period has really helped us in this entire story because earlier also as you said we were trying to take to the market but this time it's been very stark the difference between circulation in the metros and circulation in the non metros has been so stark that advertisers have realized that there's a difference between the kind of sales that is happening in the two parts of the country in Bharat versus the top 5-6 metros that we are talking about what we did is of course two things one is we have really want to try to facilitate this information and in various ways so the point that you talked about the fact that job losses have been less sales employed is more in non metros also very importantly the fear factor has been very less in these areas that we represent so the market has opened up much faster people are going out shopping and therefore definitely the kind of uptake that is happening is much higher so what we have tried to do is take this information to advertiser after advertiser in various forums in calls like this etc and trying to tell them about what really is the scenario and what is happening in these markets as we are sitting over here in these cities we often don't get to know so this has given us a lot of traction behind how we have taken this information more importantly and of course we were helped by some studies which came in the midst of this so some of the largest consultancies came up with some research studies on what is actually happening in the non metros versus the metros and all that is that we took to the advertiser but what has really also helped us is the fact that the two things and I can speak of our newspaper what we have seen one the circulation going up two in the midst of this entire information so there is a lot of cloud around the kind of information that one is getting right now from various news sources what is trustworthy, what is not a lot of fake news floating around so the entire credibility aspect of the newspaper has helped us a lot why? because one engagement levels have gone up in this time because people have got the time to read newspapers and they are looking forward to a news source which is credible which is sanitize the information so that has happened and this has resulted in responsiveness going up so earlier maybe even a year back advertisers never told us that we are getting so much response from the newspaper now in the last 4-5 months we have got some excellent case studies that the newspaper has shown and these are demonstrated we have numbers from many different categories we have now got numbers where we know how much the response is coming from the newspaper so that has also and that of course that response is very different in our market than the metro that is happening right now that the numbers we are getting are much more in our cities so we have taken these numbers again to advertisers they have looked at it very early on that our revenue will depend upon how fast can we get customer back to the advertiser so we have worked single-handedly on that various ideas, partnerships where we have tried to do this and this I think has been pretty successful because as we speak we have got several case studies which are win-win for both us and the advertiser where we have demonstrated this that is what has happened I already have some audience questions coming in I will take that later let me just jump back again to Vikram and pick up the point that he made about why are we having this conversation in the first place, Vikram let me ask you about print specifically and you and your agency the various roles you have done over time has been investing in print for a long time and the print story has been very interesting in India very unlike what is happening in western markets India is a multi-language market the English and Hindi hold large shares 60% of the volume print goes into these two languages where do you see language print especially Hindi being placed post COVID do you think this entire COVID will give extra impetus to growth of print advertising given the kind of discussions you had and the data pointers that you threw, how can language print take advantage of this you know tailwind so to say okay I think firstly there is at this point in time the qualifier I'd like to put is I think the two on the agency side the two champions of print from the agency side I think are on this panel with Cheshire and me because I think in most cases we are the ones who are really really espousing the cause and I'm saying this because there are serious headwinds against print let's not kid ourselves on that point and even as we speak today while TV and digital have come back to pre-COVID levels more or less digital has probably crossed pre-COVID levels TV is just about getting there print is still a far way away from pre-COVID levels so I don't think there is a tailwind right now that said for regional versus English clearly and for the the up country of Bharat clearly versus metros there is but I would still not be happy with that I think we have to get print back to a local place and I think that's where you know there is a combination of challenges because at one level marketers also there is a challenge from a planners in agencies who have probably forgotten how to sell the magic of print so it requires a couple of us old fogies to come in and bang people on the head and say that listen guys there is so much power in this medium not use it and at the same time I think you also need clients to push it so people like Vivek are actually pushing it very very strongly that Darbar has been using it also very well and for an FMCG to actually to talk about it I'd love to know whether that pressure came from agency or it came from the client so it can be both and wherever it comes from it's fine but I think in most cases it's not coming from either it's got to come from at least one or the other so I think address that get the clients get print into the evoke set thereafter I think there's a lot of fail when because if you're if you're thinking of upcountry and if you're thinking of using the print then obviously language papers are the ones that are going to be chosen the other part which needs to be evangelize this local country local market planning as against mass India advertising spring there are 730 odd districts in India we believe that there are no more than 200 districts which actually contribute to 85-90% of the economic power hinterland Bharat is very dispersed so when you it's not concentrated like metros so there is a element of wastage if you can carefully find out which 200 districts you have to advertise in R and you can find in that case you'll find local marketing options are the ones to use that's where print plays a role radio plays a role regional TV plays a role and local OTT plays a role I think fair points in fact you know one of the points that Satyajit made and Vikram has also made which is credibility and this is the best time to showcase this I myself remember from personal experience when the lockdown was at speak and a lot of stories were floating around and as happens these days you get a lot of content on whatsapp and social media which turns out to be untrue the only platform where you could make sure that the story was correct was print and I think that's a very very important important tool for print to kind of talk about eventually brands who are looking for credibility and brands should look for credibility print is a very very important tool and that's a way to get you know the ground back jumping across to you Vikram mentioned who suggested the idea of using print more then see or you guys read yourself so let me answer it differently one is that news as a yonor let me tell you has become extremely important and I'm saying news as a complete yonor irrespective of media, irrespective of television, digital or paper, newspaper news as a yonor has become significant our spends on news yonor have gone up significantly so this year even television viewership shows that there is movement towards news so news as a yonor for us is almost 3x of what it was last year right now within news yonor there is of course huge amount of competition right so should I spend on television should I spend on print should I newspaper should I spend on digital all three of these are doing exceedingly well in terms of especially the television and digital part of it print let me tell you last year we used it very effectively so last year in fact print was about 10-12% of our overall spends this year there was a bit of a pause in quarter one I think because of the conditions that were prevalent at that time we are now back on print apart from trust and credibility that all of you have talked about I think from a news value from an announcement value right announcing your promotions for example or announcing new launches for example I think their print is the most important medium I mean you know I at least firmly believe as an advertiser that if you have to make just one simple announcement you know of a new launch or a promotion print works most effectively right however from a salience point of view and you know from a continuity point of view we have started advertising a lot on television within television news yonor and digital news as well trying to take home pages etc so that we get visibility there so well slowly coming back into newspapers between English and Hindi print I think most certainly vernacular print works very effectively in fact I must tell you this must be of interest to you we did apart from IRS we rely a lot on our distributors to feed us information for distributors and to understand where the viewership is and how is the readership performing and interestingly most of the small town tier and again Bharat distributors came back and said that distribution circulation for print is pretty much back to pre-COVID levels right so that's given us the confidence to advertise that's the point we've been talking about 85-90% of circulation is back in the non-metro areas let me go to Shashi Sinha now about micro targeting versus mass targeting is that one of the options to consider when it comes to looking at smaller markets, non-metro markets a different take I mean that of course one golden rule word jungle saying never I always say yes you know so that having said that let me see you know make a different point when talking about print and vernacular print you guys spoke about it in a jocular fashion and we reacted but you didn't get the whole picture I think the future is in that Karni Karaksha we were talking about you know today all these print guys which by himself probably have very powerful digital units and this is becoming making that you know if they were to package it together because in a way you are reaching the same customer and today in this pandemic a lot of people have read one of the sites available so I think if we were to complete the loop you know what Vivek doesn't probably didn't explain fully but fine-tuned it to a perfect art of looking at responses so I think you know if you were to build on that if you were to build on that and you know actually in my mind it is a classic case of doing top funnel bottom funnel action together so print as Minu says you know you start from the top of the funnel launching everything and you print the bucket and through their own you know act of distribution and I am told Minu has done some fabulous work with publications with the pandemic so that is one part of bottom funnel action their digital assets perhaps the largest if not the second largest circulate on their digital footprint if they were to be combined I genuinely believe what today in this discussion we are going to be talking about Agni Paraksha can actually become the future of print in this country Yeah and it kind of couples quite well with digital because you know a similar kind of you know response driven medium is used when it comes to digital Vivek you've been in the auto industry for a long time and from what I understand you also worked in the consumer durable space and you are on the other side of the table where publishers come to you naturally Tata Motors has been a big investor when it comes to print advertising and you also your agency comes to you with a lot of plans where do you see the gap in terms of the messaging that comes from print and what do you think if you were not wearing a Tata Motors hat and you were only wearing a CMO's hat and you had multiple categories to look at where do you think the print industry can fine tune their pitch to you which will perhaps suitcase some of the strengths of vernacular print better to a CMO yeah I think one of the key areas now as a CMO is how do I optimize the funnel you know the customer buying funnel and in auto industry or in consumer durables it's a pretty long funnel in terms of timeline and also the number of areas of engagement so in terms of print I think a better idea of how they can influence the different you know touch points for a customer a better realization would really help us second is obviously it is ROI based and Shashi briefly mentioned more and more marketers are getting into deep analytics and very clear number based decisions on how to choose obviously media buying has always been a number based business but what it was lacking earlier was internal number of manufacturers overlaid with the traditional numbers in terms of reach and circulation that overly the more the media understands for each client the better they'll be able to tailor their their offerings to marketers so it's not just about almost like one sided approach of this is my circulation this is my reach this is my PG and I assume it suits you the approach for each market each market year each product would be the way to go ahead of course it also owners lies a lot on the agency client relationship because I can't expect a publication to get a lot of internal data but I think that's why the agency client and publication triangle has to work a lot more efficiently efficiently as partners rather than as you know a business like a relationship to keep this media alive the fact remains that ROA is going to be continuously under pressure whether we like it or not you know we can talk about it in forums that digital TV and print has to co-exist the fact is that at some point of time we'll have to you know make choices between these three you know and that's where I think this a triangle of you know three different partners have to work much better together to help make right decisions I think the buzz word is right decisions there are some times when we have to accept that probably print is not the right way to go but the same data at some point of time will show us that print is the right way to go so we'll have to have far more transparency a far more database approach and better you know deeply integrated partner kind of a working rather than sitting across the table and making you know if I can use the word business needs. I think very honest inputs Vikram is raising his hand I presume to talk about the client agency relationship Vikram you are on mute you'll have to unmute yourself. Okay so I think Naval had put a question to you that helped the print guys fine tuned their pitch to you their pitch and when it comes to pitch what is the one thing they should say you are clearly saying I'm using it for performance sales top panel bottom panel they seem to be saying right now trust should they be dialling up trust or should they be dialling up sales you can only do one the answer is I think sales Vikram sales man I agree when I said customer funnel it's a little seems to be pointing more towards sale but there's a little bit top of the funnel also there because print especially in these days it automatically gives a lot more involvement as a media that's the biggest benefit of print you know I can get people to look at my ad for possibly a minute or more I don't have a chance of that in any other media so that is one element of print which has to work and trust automatically kind of draws the customer into the funnel you know if there's no trust a customer doesn't even come into the funnel so I think you know to repeat myself a better understanding of the funnel and the role of the print publications in different parts of the funnel is what we have to look at I think you hit the nail on the head trust is the bedrock on which prints ability to be able to be attractive to advertisers is based and this is that the advertiser comes in to drive ROI which perhaps is true for a lot of very important to do for print if I can take one last question with you before we move to audience questions I was reading another report which said one of the other automakers I think it was which announced that their expansion plans for the next two years will include 70% expansion of dealerships in non-metro rural and tier 1 and tier 2 cities so clearly as Vikram also mentioned there's a lot of tailwind there's a lot of positive story going about Bharat as you like to call it what are the trends you've seen because print is kind of too prong when it comes to advertising revenues one is the corporate advertising from the large national brands the other is city centric or state centric retail advertising so give us a sense of how that is shaped up because as we understand large parts of the Bharat are not as impacted by covid the presumption here is that local retail advertising is not as hit or is back better than corporate advertising is that correct so I will take it what Vikram mentioned earlier is that the people those who sit in the buildings in Gurgaon and Bombay their view of the world is totally different so I'll give you an example in the month of September in Bhopal there's a big jeweler from Indore launched a 15,000 square feet showroom in Bhopal and he happens to be known to me so he invited me on phone that you know if you are in Bhopal please come and join so I actually asked him I said guys this is like September in such a situation are you sure you are taking such a plunge and all that he said I'm already up 70% of my last year sales in my other showrooms and he launched the showroom and I called him up last week itself to check after one month what is the status he's saying this showroom sale is better than my other showroom so far so what is happening in the in the so called Bharat the markets are already almost back to normal like if you look at a real state my real state advertising in the month of September October is far higher than what I had last year September October so I think things for understanding and is very slightly mentioned and Meenu said there already started going out so looking at the shops what's happening in the market I would urge all the marketers that this is a time maybe in their career that they need to change a bit that see metros are right now in a trouble we all know it so maybe the whole game plan has to change and start focusing on Bharat in a way that when you really go and understand the market because what happened when we look at sitting at Bombay or Delhi we said ok entire Hindi belt and we call it HSM in the speaking market and all that but frankly speaking with an Hindi speaking market there is Chhattisgarh who talks a different language than Madhya Pradesh which is a neighboring state or Rajasthan or Bihar or Jharkhand the language the whole personality the perception of people totally different so unless until you know unless until you touch and feel of those markets you know every state in India is the side of a country in Europe you know but we think no no we are looking at making about targeting micro markets I think that's what is required I would sincerely urge the market here that this is a time you must do a small chain like I was talking to a friend of mine he said I have decided to shut my head of his marketing office in Mumbai and I told all these guys please now go and move into the regions so you will operate from Bihar you will operate from Karnataka you will operate from wherever so what happened this will give them opportunity to understand the market actually in much more detail rather than going for a one-day trip and do a sales content and that might not be very good news for some marketers who might not want to be based on non vitro but that's a different story altogether I will pick up some audience questions which are coming in Anjiv Srivastava it says is economy back on track consumers are just buying the basics bare minimum needed for survival and what is happening to other products Vikram you want to take that I don't know whether I am the best person to answer that but what we are seeing is it is it is category specific things like retail high-end stuff like jewelry is whatever Girish example notwithstanding the entire white goods even mobiles to an extent these are right now till at least August we figure hadn't sort of got back into a full growth trajectory we are hoping that in September, October, November it will be back from whatever we talk to our clients it is definitely picking up but these have been slow FMCGs, Pharma BFSI Auto to some extent all of these I think have been well on the road to recovery but I think some of them have not Real estate also is now saying they are picking up Real estate is a very interesting story because we all know in metros it is seriously challenged and specially commercial real estate the outlook for that perhaps for the next two years is not very fantastic because a lot of offices are doing work from home companies are unlikely to send people back to home large tech companies have announced work from home for life so I think Real estate is a very mixed back story and that's where the sort of strength of the Bharat sort of really comes through where you see that Real estate in you go outside Bombay to a Pune or a Kolhapur or a Sholapur Real estate is booming there even in markets in Hindi markets as Giri Shagrawal was talking about Bhopal or Jaipur and these markets Real estate is booming so that's a very good barometer that industry of what's happening across Bharat let me pick up the next question that's for Vivek Vivek you mentioned that auto has done very well in the non metro markets for three years now what is the category of cars that sell the best in these areas and have you also used influencer marketing category of cars traditionally that obviously if you go back five years the smaller cars were doing well but it's completely changed now people are going probably into a much wider base we see premium hatchbacks doing well we see entry SUV is doing well so no longer people are restricted to the cheapest car rather there's a much better nuance thinking on which car is going to suit me the best which will give me the right image that I want to portray and it's a complete mix in fact today as we speak my compact SUV has much more demand than the entry car that we have the premium hatch has much more demand than the entry car and this is across the country I think customers like SL and you should not discount the effect of the reverse urbanization which we keep seeing the mindset of people and I think Shashi mentioned this between India and Bharat is going to become very much homogenized we should not be creating this separation anymore and that's something we are seeing very clearly I think fair point and I think this point of SUV is very interesting the value created by this lower end SUV category in the last 10 years is really driving the value chain up from small and compact cars into a higher price point and that's very interesting and given that a lot of growth is coming from non-materials when you combine both these data points you understand that the market is moving up and also moving wider so that's a very interesting point there's another question about this perhaps the gentleman on the panel who represents agencies can take up should agencies open office in tier 2 non-metro cities for better reach and understanding of the audience Mr. Sinha that's a tough question easy to say yes practically not easy to do because finally we are close to our clients so we go wherever our clients go and that's another thing need is to mention there is like in the rest of the world if you look at this on retail if you see India is one of the few countries ad-ex at this point in time is the top 300 top 100 advertisers this is not true in most markets of the world you see the big markets which are high advertisers like US and China it's spread out it's not we like it is in India so as that opens big advertisers we have to find ways to access them whether the solutions are opening offices or the solutions is technology I don't know but definitely the larger point being made here that for India to grow it cannot be the top companies or the top 500 companies which are building advertising it has to be a larger bunch we've seen some of that happening in states like Kerala for instance agencies have offices outside of the main cities like Mr Agrawal mentioned there's a client who shuts off in the metro so perhaps time for agencies to look that side another question that's right perhaps Vikram can take this have product sales during these times seen better response from ads in print or TV or digital or any other media has any medium been able to score better look I think print it's a little early because the recovery has been slow but we've already got some great examples from both Girish and Satya and even Vivek was talking about how even post-COVID when they've used it it's actually given good results I think the default option has been to move more to digital for performance reasons we're talking about sales so I think people have moved more into digital and also gone within digital more into performance and branding so we've got so many more of our clients doing e-commerce marketing of course performance marketing was always there but that's sort of stepped up so I think there is a focus on bottom of the funnel being driven by digital at this point in time TV I think is happening but I think TV also people are coming back with right now more product stories rational benefits and loftier brand purpose because they want to give give reasons to buy right now rather than to feel to build a psychological equity in that trade-off fair enough this is a question for Mr. Girish Agrawal when Google and Facebook are cornering 90% of digital ad revenues digital ad revenues and the newspaper industry is going to see incremental disruption in that environment how do you have more sufficient pie of the market to sustain and grow see there are two aspects to it most of the digital platform of newspapers like I can talk about my platform on digital we are not really looking forward for too much of advertising on it because our ultimate goal is to make that a subscribed one so for that I want to give a clutter free environment to a reader so for that we are not really welcoming ads on the app and we have seen enough case study than Europe and US for that because see what happened on digital platform the advertising what you put in is very intrusive you know you kind of pop up you kind of unnecessary bother me while in the television media or a print media I am watching something I am reading something and your ad is also placed there so as a reader I have a choice whether to read it or not to read it but it doesn't hit in my face so there is a reason on digital platform we are very clear that we are really not pushing much for advertising Vivek this question is for you pandemic has given fear to people to travel in public transport do you see swell in sale to first time car buyers and is it coming from Bharat I think very good question and it is bang on in terms of the trend we are seeing dramatic increase in first time buyers I might say a lot of people are buying the second car at home so double car households are growing we are seeing a lot of first time buyers coming in the Bharat also for sure there is a clear reprioritization happening in terms of spend I think some of the panellists spoke about it earlier or suddenly automotive or having a personal transport has become probably the number one priority thanks to the COVID kind of scenario so the answer is yes on both counts number of first time users first time buyers are going up and we are seeing the trend both in cities as well as in Bharat right we are out of time but before we go one quick question to all the panellists as I mentioned at the start we do an annual survey with the medicine called the pitch medicine ad outlook so I think the third time ever we had to do a mid-year review and naturally the mid-year review was not a very happy review the industry has regrown after a very very long time obviously due to the pandemic and print has been hard hit there were some numbers that we put out in that report which said in H2 the industry overall will grow 60-70% as compared to H1 overall adage degrowth 70% and that's a very significant bump down print de-groo 70% in Q2 Q2 when I mean the April-May-June quarter because we start the report from the January quarter what's your outlook now we are sitting in middle of October and we all have visibility of the festive season pretty much till December so the fourth quarter will be over in another couple of months if I were to ask you a quick question what is your outlook for the overall industry and print specifically where will it end up this year what would your number be I can say about print and especially about Danik Bhaskar in the second quarter which is technically our second quarter which is July-August-September third quarter for you actually we are already at 70% of last year base and especially if I break that quarter into the month wise so the September was almost 80% of last year so I think we are looking at quarter three which is technically your quarter four to touch almost 90% of last year I think that's a huge bump Vikram you guys did a lot of calculations do the numbers still hold are you seeing improved recovery please unmute yourself we actually expect the October-November December which is really ahead of us if we can get to last year's level I think it will be good I think overall the year Jan-December will close at between 30 and 35% down for print versus last calendar 2019 July-August-September I would concur I even thought it would be about 30% lower than last year was what Girish was saying and we are hoping that the October-November December is not far with last year Fantastic I think that's better news for print than we would have hoped 5 months back Minu is going to invest even more do you see similar numbers coming from the print industry like I said our overall advertising spans have grown and October-December certainly it will grow further in fact Diwali is right this year in mid-November last year it was last week of October Angol was somewhere between September and October so a lot of festive season is in quarter three so our spans are going to go up overall print I think sequentially certainly would go up so quarter two which is the July-September quarter has been better than April-June October-December would be better than July-September so sequentially I think it would go up from last year perspective I think it would still may not hit last year numbers but sequentially I think I see it going up and a lot of our NPDs are going to be rolling out so we are going to be using print to announce the innovations I think as we get into the festive season a lot of companies brands are also looking at spending more open to new campaigns so I think that is a very big confidence builder the momentum kind of spreads more and more companies spend Satyajit Sain Gupta that means more money is required for you and your team to bring in yeah so surely for while we are setting two days start and I am extremely optimistic because the kind of traction we are seeing from the festive category so to speak automobiles, jewellers home appliances is very good so in fact I should tell you that two-wheelers, four-wheelers both we are already above last year and we do our festive planning in blocks so we have already finished the first 16 days before the first Navaratra and we are growing at double digits in that block so I am extremely optimistic and I am really hopeful that the next 30-40 days will be great volume difference fantastic Vivek auto industry cannot work only on quarterly plans you make investments in advance it takes 3-4 years for a plant to come up and then start selling cars so you cannot pull back plans on the wire so are you going to see increased investment to print next year will it be a meaningfully significant increase? Michael for me to specifically talk about print but let me talk about this quarter where we are sitting in Q3 for us and Q4 for you definitely the fact that Diwali's mid-November will help I think overall equalize at least our spend on print overall our index will be higher than last year because of IPL moving this quarter but print I think will be on par with last year quarter we expect print to be higher that is Jan Feb March quarter print would be definitely higher considering that part of March this year was washed out but we do we are looking at accelerating and stepping firmly into couple of new segments as well so print I think it's on the growth part from our side Mr. Sinha last word from you so I mean I know what you are saying so if we match last year quarter October we will be lucky I mean I am talking about national level I am not talking only languages but I am talking only print so I think I agree with the Jan December sentiment of 14-15% negative index will drop because of that second quarter we were washed out but from where we were it's obvious to be far better off and as Vivek mentioned IPL coming in has made a big difference to this quarter but I would just want to be cautious and saying that we probably won't cross last year's level on print it will be very lucky one quarter was a complete wash out so that's only expected but print is coming back bouncing back very fast and as we all discussed Bharat non metro markets are already active fully functional they are driving India's economic growth the government is making its own contribution through various streams schemes infrastructure spending the agrarian economy has done well so all in all as far as Bharat is concerned things are looking really up and looking good and the message to marketers from this panel is look at it with a different newer lens as Vikram mentioned why are we having this conversation in the first place look at Bharat with renewed energy renewed lens and make investments with that thank you to all of you for joining this panel discussion thank you Meenu thank you gentlemen for taking time out I hope our audience had interesting time listening to this conversation I have more questions but we will route them to you offline thank you stay safe and we all look forward to meeting you soon sometime soon in person thank you thanks all bye